This WordPress.com site is about our life and experiences after retiring in San Clemente Ecuador

Lluvia Y Lodo, En Todas Partes (Rain and Mud, Everywhere!)

We live in a beautiful, modern two-story apartment at the end of a quiet little dead-end street about two city blocks from the Pacific ocean in the quaint little fishing village of San Clemente, Ecuador.

That almost sounds too dreamlike to be real, even though we have lived here for more than a year. The little dirt road leading up from the road to our home looks like this most of the year:

And the road from the main road to the beach access looks like this (again – most of the year!):

BUT…

I have mentioned before that the province of Manabi is the driest of all of Ecuador’s provinces and most of the rainfall occurs during the months of January through March. The pictures above were taken last January before the rains came and show the way the roadway looks during the dry months of April through December.

The rains have come, and come, and come! And our quaint little dirt road has converted into a slippery puddle of standing water and mud. I went out this morning and took the following pictures of the same stretch of roadway depicted above.

And the roadway down to the beach access looks like this today:

I tried to navigate around the puddles for a bit and finally gave up.

Notice my left leg is under attack from the mosquitoes which have spawned in the new ponds and lakes found in yards and along the roadway!

One more good rain and the kids will be able to play pool volleyball in this field:

We had a record-breaking wet season last year and this year has started out looking like it wants to set new records! For a couple of months more we will have to deal with roadways like this:

But, the hills are verdant with new life and the farmers who scramble with the rains for their one big cash crop are happy. We still feel blessed to live in the village I described at the start of this post!

15 Responses

your photos remind me of why i don my 8-dollar plastic boots whenever i am in town or plan to go to town! jama has sidewalks, but crossing the street normally results in icky yuckly mudbath for the shoes/feet, sometimes up to the ankles!

since january jumped off to such a rainy start, do you suppose february might be kinder?

ja! we had one inch of rain two nights ago and half of an inch more last night!

Thanks for posting these pics John. We’ll be there in a bit less than three weeks, so it’s nice to know what to expect. Hopefully the rains will taper off a bit. I must remember to pack lots of skeeter stuff!!

Marilee – it is now about 12:30 and the clouds are parting. We should have a few hours of sunshine today to dry up the puddles. It is like that most days with rain primarily at night and some sunshine in the days. By the time you get here we (hopefully) will be moving to more dry weather and then in April the rain simply stops. It is eerie how the weather changes so quickly. See you soon.

Oh, I love the green! Even with all the rain you are getting, it is still beautiful. We are in the dry season in Nicaragua. Not a drop of rain until May 15th..yes they can actually predict the day the rains will start..and they have been spot on for several years. Get yourself some nice rubber boots. I found a pair of bright pink shin high rubber boots at Target when I was in the states. They not only provide protection from the mud in the rainy season, but the biting ants, too.

Yes! The transformation of the hills from dry and brown to lush and deep green is worth the inconvenience of the mud! The locals here also tell me when the rains will come as if they have internal barometers. It is a refreshing educational experience living amongst people who do not have to, “get back to the basics” because they never left them!

Wow, I don’t know how you get a bicycle around in that mud either! I will be thankful for our paved roads and lack of mosquitoes. But, on the other hand people pay a lot for mud beauty treatments, and you get one free any time you want. 😀

Yes, they (we) do. Rain comes when it is supposed to and then it dries out. That is life and life is good! Thank you so much for churning your way through our old post and learning about our little village.